Even if you're generally a Google search guy or gal, there's a good chance you'll end up using a lot of Bing services in Windows 8. The tablet-y portion of the operating system comes with seven Bing applications covering a range of services—general search, maps, news, weather, sports, travel, and finance. The apps are pretty and responsive, not to mention faster and more fluid than the Bing iPad app. They make it easy to find what you're looking for, and for some people they might provide a more convenient entry point to the Web than the browser itself.

You can still use Google in Microsoft's browser, but the cumbersome process of changing the default search provider in Internet Explorer is indicative of the company's add-on and app-based search strategy. Just as in Windows 7, changing IE's default search engine to Google requires locating and downloading a Google search add-on from Microsoft's Internet Explorer Gallery, (and it has to be done on the desktop version of IE rather than the touch-friendly one).

The benefit of the search add-ons for Internet Explorer isn't readily apparent; they promise "search predictions" and "suggestions," as if there were no other way to implement that functionality. (Chrome, by contrast, lets you change the default search provider to Bing in the browser settings.) But the use of browser add-ons instead of mere settings changes seems like a precursor to what's found in Windows 8, which goes further by bundling the Bing apps into the operating system, lessening the user's reliance on the browser. Search isn't just something that happens on the Web or in a little box in the corner of your browser in Microsoft's world these days. Search is an application. Many of them, in fact.

Let's take a look at them, shall we?

Enlarge/ Clockwise from top left: Bing Finance, Sports, Travel, Weather, Search, and News. The live tiles on the Windows 8 Start screen highlight the top content of the day in each app.

Bing Search: Not quite the hub it should be

The Bing Search app greets you with roughly the same home page you'll see by navigating to Bing.com in a browser, with the search bar up top, the picture of the day filling the screen, and a list of trending topics. If you search, you'll get some suggestions. What should I search for?

You can search the "Web" or "Images." There isn't a news (or any other type of) search here, because that's in the separate Bing News app. It's inconvenient, but after selecting "what should I search for on Bing," my results look like this:

To bring up additional search results, you scroll to the right and they just keep popping up, with little delay. But that's about as far as you can go in the app itself. Actually clicking on a search result brings you out of the app and into IE10, or whatever your default browser is:

The search results in the Bing app aren't as smart as they are on Bing.com. You can search for "weather" and get actual weather forecasts without clicking any of the search results, just like on the Bing website. But if you search the app for, say, "flight to Hawaii," you'll get a list of travel sites but not the actual flight result search tool the Bing website provides. You have to use the separate Bing Travel tool for that.

There are some hooks between the Bing Search app and the others, but not as many as we'd like. The weather search we mentioned brings up a tile that, when clicked, moves you over to the Weather app. But in travel, searching for flights doesn't provide any way to go directly to the Travel app. Instead, you get results from various travel websites or the Bing travel website itself, and clicking any one of them brings you into the Web browser rather than into the Travel app.

If you go back to the Bing Search app home screen and click "more" under the trending list, a Metro-esque series of tiles with the most-read about topics of the day pops up:

Just as in the regular search results, clicking on any particular story brings you out of the app and into the browser.

As you might know, there are two ways to reveal additional options in a Windows 8 Metro app. One is swiping down from the top or up from the bottom (or right-clicking), and the other is swiping in from the right (or with a mouse, moving the cursor to the top or bottom right of the screen). In Bing Search, swiping down on the home screen gives you the option to set the picture of the day as your lock screen photo, but that's about it.

Swiping in from the right lets you share search results via e-mail and other means, and brings up several more options. You can connect to Facebook to "do more with your friends on Bing," but the integration doesn't seem to do much if anything in the app. While searching Bing in a browser while connected to Facebook brings up a separate list of Facebook results, no such thing happens in the app itself.

Other options in the sidebar include setting the adult content filter to "strict," "moderate," or "off," clearing your search history, and deciding whether Bing should store your search history at all. Overall, the Bing search app isn't much more than Bing in the browser, and sometimes it's less.

Bing News: The Windows 8 daily newspaper

Since you can't get news search results in the main Bing app, we have Bing News! And it's quite nice. Above you see the app's home page. If you keep scrolling to the right you'll see stories from various sections like business, technology, entertainment, sports, and so forth. These are not customizable, but the app is not without customization options. If you swipe down, you'll get options to look at breaking news, video, some top sources like AP, the New York Times and Wall Street Journal, or dive into a bigger list of news sources.

The Share option, naturally, lets you share news stories via e-mail, Twitter applications, Evernote, and so forth. But sharing is fraught with problems. The links can look a little bizarre as they are prepended with something like "bingnews://application/view?entitytype=article&pageid" etc.

As noted in our Windows 8 review, these links are designed to be opened only in Windows 8. So when I e-mail a story to myself, the e-mail will say "If you have Windows 8, open this in News." Clicking on the link in a non-Windows 8 computer does nothing, of course. But even from within the Windows 8 Mail client, I had trouble opening these links. From my personal (Yahoo) address I could open them. From my work (Exchange) address, I could not.

Moving on, Bing News has a video player embedded, as you can see here (quality varies by source):

62 Reader Comments

I agree about the Bing search app being not as great as it could be. It keeps bringing me in with the live tiles on what's trending, only for it to show me different things in the trending bar on the bottom than what I came in to search. Something about it never seems to sync up.

I'm slightly nervous about the "search" overlay apps ... happy to hear how good IE 10 is. I want the internet to be free and open; to keep that freedom we need generic access, not tightly coupled "apps" ... my opinion of course. With Microsoft seeing search so important why on the desktop (Windows 7 & 8) side must I resort to programs like FileSearchEX to get good file level results? It seems they have downplayed a large part of what computing is still about. Balance would be good.

My assessment: The maps are less than useless in Korea, which I realize is a data problem, not an app problem. But the theme continues with the news app, which doesn't let me customize the news sources in any way - another data problem. The weather app is inaccurate here as well - hmm, more bad data. And I can't comment on the internet search app, but I think the consensus is that one company is more-than-dominant in that field.

And the crux is that, until the competition arrives with Metro-style applications to replace Microsoft's own, I have no control over who provides any of the data.

We are looking at a platform before it is in major circulation -- and it will remain just a platform until people start building on it.

Was surprised with how well the install went and how fast and slick win 8 is. And ie 10. Is actually usable. Was nervous about the metro interface but it switches well between tr desktop and it smoothly. At least ms got the price right for it. 40 bucks. An hour to download and lessThen 30 mins to install . Overall. A great job for a radical shift in os

I'm not sure I understand the idea behind the Bing apps. Why would I want to use limited Bing apps when IE10 (with Bing search defaults) is right there? This makes no sense to me.

But then Google does the same thing. Getyourgoogleback.com prompts you to download both Google Chrome and the Google Search app. Why would I want the search app when I have the full Chrome browser right there?

I think people are going app crazy, which makes no sense on desktops, laptops, or fully functioning tablets. Why open two, three, four smaller apps when one fully functioning program will do the same thing on one screen with less switching? And it's not just Microsoft. The Chrome Web Store is full of "apps" that are nothing but bookmarks to websites.

What the hell is going on? It's like the tech world is regressing. Instead of graduating on to higher levels of sophistication and efficiency, we all going back to kindergarten and playing with large colorful blocks that can only be used for simple tasks.

We're dumbing down our tech and catering to the lowest common denominator. This is never a good strategy and it will hurt us in the long run.

I think people are going app crazy, which makes no sense on desktops, laptops, or fully functioning tablets. Why open two, three, four smaller apps when one fully functioning program will do the same thing on one screen with less switching?

... SKIP ...

It's like the tech world is regressing. Instead of graduating on to higher levels of sophistication and efficiency, we all going back to kindergarten and playing with large colorful blocks that can only be used for simple tasks.

We're dumbing down our tech and catering to the lowest common denominator. This is never a good strategy and it will hurt us in the long run.

Yes, I agree with you. As we voice our opinion I feel we can force some balance. Microsoft and Apple are looking to acquire the "next billion" of users. These will be people all around the world new to computing. They feel a much simpler experience is needed. It is just that their version of "simpler" seems to be "captive".

This heavy handed leveraging of the Microsoft desktop dominance to attempt to herd people to its own property, Bing, leaves me wondering why anyone would bother looking into antitrust concerns with regard to Google when MS is still engaging in the same behavior that got the justice department on its back 15 years ago.

This heavy handed leveraging of the Microsoft desktop dominance to attempt to herd people to its own property, Bing, leaves me wondering why anyone would bother looking into antitrust concerns with regard to Google when MS is still engaging in the same behavior that got the justice department on its back 15 years ago.

What exactly is the harm here? Times have changed. Noone expects Google not to push its own products in a Chromebook or on Android, or Apple not to push Safari or iCloud or whatever in iOS devices. With another decade and a half of internet use under everyone's belt (basically an eternity in this field), the idea that including basic functionality is somehow detrimental to the user if it comes from the same company as the OS looks increasingly irrelevant. If you want to use Google, go download the Google app and use it. It's apparently quite nice. And anyway, as Win8 converges the tablet/PC space, it looks far less like MS has any kind of relevant "monopoly."

Since it looked like recent updates took these apps from "skeletal" to "lacking", I'm hoping Ars is planning to follow up and check out any new updates coming in over the next month or two for these.

This heavy handed leveraging of the Microsoft desktop dominance to attempt to herd people to its own property, Bing, leaves me wondering why anyone would bother looking into antitrust concerns with regard to Google when MS is still engaging in the same behavior that got the justice department on its back 15 years ago.

What exactly is the harm here? Times have changed. Noone expects Google not to push its own products in a Chromebook or on Android, or Apple not to push Safari or iCloud or whatever in iOS devices. With another decade and a half of internet use under everyone's belt (basically an eternity in this field), the idea that including basic functionality is somehow detrimental to the user if it comes from the same company as the OS looks increasingly irrelevant. If you want to use Google, go download the Google app and use it. It's apparently quite nice. And anyway, as Win8 converges the tablet/PC space, it looks far less like MS has any kind of relevant "monopoly."

Since it looked like recent updates took these apps from "skeletal" to "lacking", I'm hoping Ars is planning to follow up and check out any new updates coming in over the next month or two for these.

Maybe you misunderstood my point. I was addressing the absurdity of an antitrust investigation against Google when Google really holds no gatekeeper monopoly in any product segment - unlike Microsoft in the desktop/workstation space.

This heavy handed leveraging of the Microsoft desktop dominance to attempt to herd people to its own property, Bing, leaves me wondering why anyone would bother looking into antitrust concerns with regard to Google when MS is still engaging in the same behavior that got the justice department on its back 15 years ago.

What exactly is the harm here? Times have changed. Noone expects Google not to push its own products in a Chromebook or on Android, or Apple not to push Safari or iCloud or whatever in iOS devices. With another decade and a half of internet use under everyone's belt (basically an eternity in this field), the idea that including basic functionality is somehow detrimental to the user if it comes from the same company as the OS looks increasingly irrelevant. If you want to use Google, go download the Google app and use it. It's apparently quite nice. And anyway, as Win8 converges the tablet/PC space, it looks far less like MS has any kind of relevant "monopoly."

Since it looked like recent updates took these apps from "skeletal" to "lacking", I'm hoping Ars is planning to follow up and check out any new updates coming in over the next month or two for these.

Maybe you misunderstood my point. I was addressing the absurdity of an antitrust investigation against Google when Google really holds no gatekeeper monopoly in any product segment - unlike Microsoft in the desktop/workstation space.

Oh, maybe. But I didn't realize anyone here was talking about an anti-trust suit against Google so I thought you were saying the inclusion of these apps is problematic for MS from that standpoint. So I was just saying that I think concerns like that are kind of pointless, regardless of the company.

This heavy handed leveraging of the Microsoft desktop dominance to attempt to herd people to its own property, Bing, leaves me wondering why anyone would bother looking into antitrust concerns with regard to Google when MS is still engaging in the same behavior that got the justice department on its back 15 years ago.

What exactly is the harm here? Times have changed. Noone expects Google not to push its own products in a Chromebook or on Android, or Apple not to push Safari or iCloud or whatever in iOS devices. With another decade and a half of internet use under everyone's belt (basically an eternity in this field), the idea that including basic functionality is somehow detrimental to the user if it comes from the same company as the OS looks increasingly irrelevant. If you want to use Google, go download the Google app and use it. It's apparently quite nice. And anyway, as Win8 converges the tablet/PC space, it looks far less like MS has any kind of relevant "monopoly."

Since it looked like recent updates took these apps from "skeletal" to "lacking", I'm hoping Ars is planning to follow up and check out any new updates coming in over the next month or two for these.

I don't think anyone expects MS to push another company's product, but I do think it should be reasonable for MS to allow consumers to at least as easy as it is in iOS or Android choose which services they want to use. Without having to go to the desktop, opening an online gallery, find the one you want, and download and set it as the default search provider in order to change it on the Metro side.

<i>seems like a precursor to what's found in Windows 8, which goes further by bundling the Bing apps into the operating system</i>

will they never learn? Seems to me like another $7bn lawsuit from the regulators.

It's true the apps are bundled, but they can be easily uninstalled. In no way are they embedded into the OS, nor do they preclude customers from installing and using competing applications and services.

Times are changing. According to recent research, Microsoft has only 30% of the total market for "personal computing devices" if you mix smartphones and tablets with PCs.

Most Android users enjoy having Google services bundled with their devices, and I expect that most Windows 8 users will find Microsoft's revamped / new services useful as well. But you are free to uninstall Bing apps if you choose.

One thing I noticed in Bing Travel is that all text and images in each city's articles are all cached, ready for offline reading. I had fun reading about Prague on a plane ride recently when I ran out of shows to watch.

I can't be as kind to the Bing apps as the author is. They all lack features and customizability and that's not because Microsoft is shooting for simplicity, it's because they are all very "1.0" apps. So none of them will get you very far. The only thing I use them for is for some live information on the Start screen via their tiles, and even that is only necessary because Microsoft has killed Win 7-style desktop gadgets, and this is the new replacement. Other than that, I would be better served by Google for every one of these purposes, especially maps. And that's without even talking about the absolutely awful Metro interface on a 24" screen. So much wasted space, and having to constantly right-click to see options I forgot were there even though there is plenty of space to show them persistently.

I actually really like the Windows 8 desktop, I don't mind the charms bar with a mouse, don't miss the Start menu, and the Start screen is a decent replacement for the Start menu and gadgets. But in general I think the Metro aesthetic for apps is awful, especially on a desktop, and these early, simple apps don't do much to draw me in.

My assessment: The maps are less than useless in Korea, which I realize is a data problem, not an app problem. [...]

Why is this an editor's pick? In Korea, most foreign services including Google maps and news are pretty awful compared to the Korean services like Naver or Daum. For the longest time, foreign companies like Google weren't even allowed to service maps. That's why I am not sure if this comment adds any new information about Bing. To me, it sounds like a generalization of foreign services in Korea.

I actually really like the Windows 8 desktop, I don't mind the charms bar with a mouse, don't miss the Start menu, and the Start screen is a decent replacement for the Start menu and gadgets. But in general I think the Metro aesthetic for apps is awful, especially on a desktop, and these early, simple apps don't do much to draw me in.

I went through much of the same cognitive dissonance with Metro apps on my large display-equipped workstation, until I realized that I basically needed to use none of them in the desktop context.

The Metro apps are there if you want them, but they can be easily unpinned from the Start screen or uninstalled altogether, and you can use the Start screen real-estate to organize your desktop app shortcuts if you like. After resetting all of the file type defaults to use desktop apps, a Windows 8 system can work pretty much like any Windows system before it, albeit with a different launcher.

However, I do really like the Metro environment on a touch screen tablet, and pretty much live in that environment.

Windows 8 out of the box can be a little unfriendly to desktop power users, but with a small amount of customization, it's fine. You can make it work how you want it to.

Can an app have more than one Live Tile? I'm wondering if that's the reason the broke everything into separate apps, so they could allow you to populate your home screen with Tiles showing each genre of data.

Also, frankly, the store needs good looking apps on day one, so a bunch of visually appealing MS developed general interest apps like these are good for the platform. That could also be why they're so thin. They're probably demo apps as much as anything, placeholders until more focused third parties roll in with their own Win8 apps. (ex. ESPN, Weather Channel, etc.)

Slightly off topic, but after seeing this ad for Lumia in the Win8 environment, I immediately thought: "Windows Phone may have a shot."

If consumers accept the Metro interface, it's going to immediately elevate Windows Phone from just "Hey, that's different from the iPhone/Android" to "Hey, I know how that works, I have it on my computer. It's easy." Obviously, MS is desperately hoping that's the case.

MS attempted that with the Start menu on WinMobile, but I think Metro has a much better chance of making that happen, since it's actually designed for touch devices, as opposed to the Start menu, which was simply slapped on mobile.

Can an app have more than one Live Tile? I'm wondering if that's the reason the broke everything into separate apps, so they could allow you to populate your home screen with Tiles showing each genre of data.

This review is inadequate because any functionality related to Bing in the Windows/ Windows Phone ecosystem is just utterly crap in most countries as it has been for years.

Living in the Netherlands, I cannot even add Ajax Amsterdam to my favorite teams in the Sports app to give an example. Want to search for something on your Windows Phone? Horrible results and you can't bind the search button to Google. Local scout on Windows Phone? Not available here. Etc, etc.

Most US based international tech bloggers seem to forget this. With Bing search becoming so vital for Windows and Windows Phone functionality, the lack of localization in Bing is becoming a huge problem for Microsoft, which will result in many unhappy customers.

This is my basic thoughts at this point after following the News here, watching videos of Win 8, and following it over the last year or so.NOTE: I am more of an Audio/Video guy who likes to geek out and build/design Machines.I am not a Smart IT Guy.But I do love tinkering with stuff and trying stuff out and screwing around with Graphics, Audio, and Video.

1.All this talk about Apps is getting me thinking that:A.Will we all be forced into buying little Apps just to add what should be basic functions in a Modern OSB.All this App stuff and the looks of this Win 8 remind me of dumbed down little smart phone Apps.Is MS Win 8 the OS for Dummies (as in the Billions of simple mass consuming consumersC. And how many times will some Company or MS know who I am and sell my personal info so I can get more junk mail snail and email types, ETC.

2.And this:A.I can not stand the videos I am seeing of what this OS looks likeB.I am a Desktop User and will never want to use a Metro Whatever you call it stuff.C.Windows 7 64-Bit Works, Is Stable, and is speedy for us on Desktops.Seems like in Win 8 I will take a step backwards and have to do even more work then I do now to get stuff flowing around.

I do not know what to make of this.I do love fooling around with Tech but I am thinking I should just stay away from this Win 8 as it looks like krap to me.I have been reading thru many Comments and am seeing a lot of people who enjoy it.I also see those who tried it and deleted it.I will just refuse to buy this for now and I guess if I really feel like wasting a bunch of time I can get that geek out and do some Self-Torture here.I can almost bet I will find stuff I need that will not work under Win 8.I will not be surprised if that one happens.And my stuff is all ghosted here so I could just go back to my old and working OS easily.I will just keep reading these stories and others for now.No real rush for me to take the plunge.

You can still use Google in Microsoft's browser, but the cumbersome process of changing the default search provider in Internet Explorer is indicative of the company's add-on and app-based search strategy.

Sounds familiar. Like installing browsers? Isn't this also giving IE an unfair advantage and forcing its use? Well, yes I believe it does.

I know we all know how the Search Charm works, but I expected some mention of it. We can easily zip between Bing apps with one search term. I don't know why MS even put a search box in the app, instead of pushing Charm use

Is there any advantage of using a search app instead of searching through the browser? All results will be loaded in the browser anyway, so why not start there as well? Same for apps like Wikipidea. Do they bring any extra's that aren't easier with a full featured desktop browser?